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Mage Spheres
Mage Spheres Mage emphasizes personal creativity and that ultimately the game's powers and traits should be used to tell a satisfying story. One of Mage's highlights is its system for describing magic, based on spheres, a relatively open-ended 'toolkit' approach to using game mechanics to define the bounds of a given character's magical ability. Different Mages will have differing aptitudes for spheres, and player-characters' magical expertise is described by allocation of points in the spheres. Centuries ago, the Tradition and Convention mages settled on the nine Spheres as a way of describing the elements of the universe. Each Sphere covers a wide area of understanding and control. Even though mages describe magic in terms of their own paradigms, the Spheres form a consistent basis from which to work. Together, the Spheres encompass all (or nearly all) of the facets of the Tellurian. Many mages posit the existence of an additional Sphere or Spheres. Each Tradition has its pet theory as to a " 10th Sphere," and the Technocratic Union seeks a Grand Unification Theory. Still, despite years of study, no one group has been able to find an over-Sphere or a missing element to fill this mythical role. Like some posited Northwest Passage, the "10th Sphere" draws students but never reveals itself. [[Mage: Correspondence Sphere|'Correspondence']] Correspondence Deals with spatial relations, giving the Mage power over space and distances. Correspondence magic allows powers such as teleportation, seeing into distant areas, and at higher levels the Mage may also co-locate herself or even stack different spaces within each other. Correspondence can be combined with almost any other sphere to create effects that span distances, or to sense various spatial effects. . [[Mage: Entropy Sphere|'Entropy']] The Entropy sphere gives the Mage power over order, chaos, fate and fortune. A mage can sense where elements of chance influence the world and manipulate them to some degree. At simple levels machines can be made to fail, plans to go off without a hitch, and games of chance heavily influenced. Advanced mages can craft self-propagating memes or curse entire family lines with blights. The only requirement of the Entropy sphere is that all interventions work within the general flow of natural entropy. . [[Mage: Forces Sphere|'Forces']] Forces concerns energies and natural forces and their negative opposites (i.e. light and shadow can both be manipulated independently with this Sphere). Essentially, anything in the material world that can be seen or felt but is not material can be controlled: electricity, gravity, magnetism, friction, heat, motion, fire, etc. At low levels the mage can control forces on a small scale, changing their direction, converting one energy into another. At high levels, storms and explosions can be conjured. Obviously, this Sphere tends to do the most damage and be the most flashy and vulgar. Along with Life and Matter, Forces is one of the three 'Pattern Spheres' which together are able to mold all aspects of the physical world. . [[Mage: Life Sphere|'Life']] Life deals with understanding and influencing biological systems. Generally speaking, any material object with mostly living cells falls under the influence of this sphere. Thus, being alive protects a thing from direct manipulation by the Matter sphere and vice versa. Simply, this allows the mage to heal herself or transform simple life-forms at lower levels, working up to healing others and controlling more complex life at higher levels. Usually, seeking to improve a complex life-form beyond natural limits causes the condition of pattern bleeding: the affected life form begins to wither and die over time. Along with Matter and Forces, Life is one of the three Pattern Spheres. . [[Mage: Matter Sphere|'Matter']] Matter deals with all inanimate material. Stone, dead wood, water, gold, and the corpses of once living things are only the beginning. With this Sphere, matter can be reshaped mentally, transmuted into another substance, or given altered properties. Along with Life and Forces, Matter is one of the three Pattern Spheres. . [[Mage: Mind Sphere|'Mind']] The Mind sphere deals with control over one's own mind, the reading and influencing of other minds, and a variety of subtler applications such as Astral Projection and psychometry and aura reading. At high levels, Mages can create new complete minds or completely rework existing ones. . [[Mage: Prime Sphere|'Prime']] The Prime sphere deals directly with Quintessence, the raw material of the tapestry, which is the metaphysical structure of reality. This sphere allows Quintessence to be channeled and/or funneled in any way at higher levels, and it is necessary if the mage ever wants to conjure something out of thin air (as opposed to transforming one pattern into another). Uses of Prime include general magic senses, counter-magic, and making magical effects permanent. . [[Mage: Spirit Sphere|'Spirit']] The Spirit sphere is an eclectic mixture of abilities relating to dealings with the spirit world and Umbra. It includes stepping into the Near Umbra right up to traveling through outer space, contacting and controlling spirits, communing with your own or others' avatars, returning a Mage into a sleeper, returning ghosts to life, creating magical fetish items, and so forth. Unlike other Spheres, the difficulty of Spirit magic is often a factor of the Gauntlet, making these spells harder for the most part. To those asociated with the Garou, this sphere can be especially helpful. . [[Mage: Time Sphere|'Time']] The Time sphere deals with dilating, slowing, stopping or traveling through time. Due to game mechanics, it is simpler to travel forward in time than backwards (and impossible to alter events that have already occured). Time can be used to install delays into spells, view the past or future, and even pull people and objects out of linear progression. . 'The Tenth Sphere' It is hinted that there may be a tenth Sphere. No evidence of its existence has ever come to light. In Dusk, this aspect of Mage is not detailed, because it serves as a potential point of theory and growth. Besides, who wants to be an archmage, anyway? . Category:Mage Category:Rules Category:Spheres